Tuesday, November 8, 2016

Phoenix Preview: Harvick shortest Vegas favorite in Sprint Cup history

It's time for Phoenix which means another Harvick win.
LAS VEGAS -- You're going to look at Kevin Harvick's odds offered at the Westgate Las Vegas SuperBook this week and think there is an error somewhere, so let's get that notion out of the way right off the bat: Kevin Harvick is the 6-to-5 favorite (Bet $100 to win $120) to win Sunday's Cam-Am 500 at Phoenix International Raceway. Yes, as in +120, and that's not a match-up price. Those odds are to win the race against 39 other drivers.

The reason for such short odds this week is because he's owned the flat 1-mile layout of Phoenix over his career and he's going to have to win Sunday's Round of 8 finale if he wants a chance to move on to next weeks Championship Round at Homestead and the opportunity to win his second Sprint Cup title. Total desperation, and a great storyline to watch unfold throughout the race.

It's a tall task for any driver to 'have to win' when the chips are down, but Carl Edwardsdid it last week at Texas and Harvick himself did it at Phoenix in 2014 when he 'had to win' and then he went on to win his only championship a week later. This was on the Westgate crew minds when creating the odds on Monday. They've seen this movie before at Phoenix and it almost always ends the same way. This guy just doesn't get rattled, which is part of the odds equation.

But the main reason for the insanely low odds is that all he does at Phoenix is win.

Harvick has eight wins in 27 Phoenix starts, six of those coming in his past eight starts, including the March race when he led a race high 139 laps and beat Edwards by just 0.01 of a second. The Bakersfield, CA native has been crushing this track in all series since he first got into auto racing.

Jimmie Johnson and Edwards have already advanced to the Championship Round by virtue winning each of the past two races. If any of the other six drivers eligible to advance win Sunday, they'll advance. As it sits now, Joey Logano and Kyle Busch are tied in points and would advance. Matt Kenseth is 1-point behind and Denny Hamlin is 2-points behind. Harvick is down 18 points behind followed by Kurt Busch who is 34-points behind. Yes, Harvick could advance without winning if everyone else has some issues, but realistically, he has to win, as does Kurt Busch, to advance.

All of the eligible drivers have past wins at Phoenix.

Read More Here............Top-5 Finish Prediction on VegasInsider.com

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